Kukla's Korner Hockey

...The guiltiest people here are the players themselves, a small but growing number of athletes, Cooke the prime example, who show little or no regard for the pain they inflict, the careers they interrupt or spoil, the quality of life they potentially impair.

This is a game that, for many reasons — including the rule book, the equipment, the coaching, and the overall conditioning and mind-set of the players — is fast becoming a mutant and dangerous form of the sport.

Hockey, the NHL in particular, has always had its warts, mostly attributable to its permissive stand on fighting, a vast amount of it cleaned up via the rule book over the last 20 years. The warts now are worse, far more dangerous. The players clearly need help to understand that and find ways to dial down the volume on an ever-more-violent game, one infinitely more dangerous and less entertaining, less artful, than even the bucket-of-blood days of the Original Six.